Artemis II astronauts rocket toward moon after spending day around Earth

NASA’s Artemis II astronauts fired their engines and blazed toward the moon Thursday night, breaking free of the chains that have trapped humanity in shallow laps around Earth in the decades since Apollo.

The so-called translunar ignition came 25 hours after liftoff, putting the three Americans and a Canadian on course for a lunar fly-around early next week. Their Orion capsule bolted out of orbit around Earth right on cue and chased after the moon to nearly 400,000 km away.

It was the first such engine firing for a space crew since Apollo 17 set out on that era’s final moonshot on December 7, 1972. NASA reported that preliminary reports indicate it went well. NASA had the Artemis II crew stick close to home for a day to test their capsule’s life-support systems before clearing them for lunar departure. Now committed to the moon, the Artemis II test flight is the opening act for NASA’s grand plans for a moon base and sustained lunar living.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will dash past the moon, then hang a U-turn and zip straight home without stopping on land. In the process, they will become the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth, breaking the Apollo 13 distance record set in 1970. They also may become the fastest during their reentry at the flight’s end on April 10. Glover, Koch and Hansen already have made history as the first Black, the first woman and the first non-US citizen to launch to the moon. Apollo’s 24 lunar travelers were all white men.

To set the mood for the day’s main event, Mission Control woke up the crew with John Legend’s “Green Light,” featuring Andre 3000 and a medley of NASA teams cheering them. “We are ready to go,” pilot Victor Glover said. Mission Control gave the final go-ahead minutes before the critical engine firing, telling the astronauts that they were embarking on “humanity’s lunar homecoming arc” to bring them back to Earth. Koch replied: “With this burn to the moon, we do not leave Earth. We choose it.” The next major milestone will be Monday’s lunar flyby. Orion will zoom 6,400 km beyond the moon before turning back, providing unprecedented and illuminated views of the lunar far side, at least for human eyes. The cosmos will even treat the Artemis II astronauts to a total solar eclipse as the moon temporarily blocks the sun from their perspective.

While awaiting their orbital departure earlier Thursday, the astronauts savoured the views of Earth from tens of thousands of miles high. Koch told Mission Control that they can make out the entire coastlines of continents and even the South Pole, her old stomping ground. “It is just absolutely phenomenal,” radioed Koch, who spent a year at an Antarctic research station before joining NASA.

NASA is counting on the test flight to kickstart the entire Artemis program and lead to a moon landing by two astronauts in 2028. Orion’s toilet may need some design tweaks before that happens. The so-called lunar loo malfunctioned as soon as the Artemis crew reached orbit Wednesday evening. Mission Control guided astronaut Koch through some plumbing tricks and she finally got it going, but not before having to resort to using contingency urine storage bags. Controllers also managed to bump up the cabin temperature. It was so cold earlier in the flight that the astronauts had to dig into their suitcases for long-sleeved clothes.

The contingency urine bags came in handy later in the day. Mission Control ordered the crew to fill a bunch of the empty bags with water from the capsule’s dispenser. A valve issue arose with the dispenser following liftoff, and NASA wanted plenty of drinking water on hand for the crew in case the problem worsened. The astronauts used straws and syringes to fill the pouches with more than two gallons worth before pivoting to the moon.